Nicolas feels a mixture of emotions: envy, resentment, but also kinship. He senses Younghusband likes it here for the same reasons that he does: this is a simple world. There is no ambivalence about their task; in spite of the secrecy, no murkiness. The interests of the Great Powers are at stake and both men know which side they’re on.

And this corner of the world is extraordinary for other reasons. Younghusband understands it too: the Kalmyk and the Tadzhik, the Kirghiz and the Pashtun, the Han Chinese and the Tibetan, the Buddhist and the Muslim. This is the reverse of the neatly embroidered cloth we take for reality; its loose ends and tangled skeins of thread are what we don’t see. The swirling mix of colours on its maps are like the marbled endpapers of the secret books. This is a place where stories intersect and grow muddled: stories of Europe and Asia, stories of Cathay and Hindustan; stories of Russia and the British Empire. Borders and endings are fuzzy, indistinct, sometimes incoherent. This would be a good place for a man to make a new start.

‘Have you any more of that brandy?’ asks Younghusband.

Nicolas offers him the flask. This time the Englishman drinks deeply. ‘I say!’ It’s impeccable stuff. Nicolas chose it in Paris for evenings just like this one: its taste evokes cedar and sandalwood and the consoling feeling of being locked in a cupboard of soft woollen coats. ‘The flask’s a bit of a relic,’ Younghusband continues, trying to read the inscription in the firelight. ‘My blasted eyes are going.’

‘It’s in Russian,’ Nicolas says. ‘From an old friend, General Skobelev.’

‘Skobelev? You know General Skobelev?’ The Englishman’s surprise is touchingly unfeigned.

‘I knew him,’ Nicolas says. ‘He died this past summer.’

‘That’s a damn shame,’ says Younghusband. ‘Every English schoolboy knows his name. The man was a fine soldier.’

‘He was many things,’ says Nicolas thoughtfully, staring at the tigerish colours of the fire.

‘Was he as tall as they say? Blue-eyed?’

Nicolas nods.

‘I met some Russian chaps en route. Good fellows. The consul in Abbottabad had me over for dinner. And there was a shopkeeper I drank vodka with who didn’t speak a word of English. I toasted every Russian name I could remember, starting with the Tsar. Skobelev’s name was the second off my lips. God rest his soul. I’d have been proud to call that man an Englishman. What I mean to say, Mr Notovik …’

‘Please, Francis, pretend we’re in the mess. Call me Nicolas.’

‘The point is, as things stand we find ourselves on different sides, but I consider you chaps worthy adversaries.’

Nicolas takes the hip flask and inspects the inscription in the fading firelight: To our White General. From his grateful men. An inadvertent sigh escapes his lips and mists the silver. He wipes it with his sleeve. ‘I’ll drink to that.’

‘I say,’ declares Younghusband, sprawling happily against some saddlebags. ‘There’s an Englishman, a Scotsman and an Irishman …’